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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29703699">they saw loki and said 'i could do better'</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolos_0/pseuds/dolos_0'>dolos_0</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Sleuthing Server Gods + Goddesses Saga [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work, The Sleuthing Server - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Other, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, dolos villain arc pog, it does happen again, it wont happen again, the false god origin story, they are very sorry, well.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:54:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29703699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolos_0/pseuds/dolos_0</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dolos. The middle child. The unwound.</p><p>The maker of mistakes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>East/Trashy OTP</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Sleuthing Server Gods + Goddesses Saga [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the often overlooked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The first chapter of the book that Ori found one day cleaning the shelves. I take and I take and it is only fair that I leave something of me behind.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>well. have an origin story. its not great, and there are more chapters on the way. enjoy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When good and pious boys and girls pray to the gods, there is one who is almost always left out. </p><p>Rosemary is the patron of families and motherhood; she has her following at the hearth. </p><p>East is the ruler of the clouds and rain; sailors mutter nervous psalms whenever they hear thunderclaps. </p><p>Mars is the screeching king of blood and bones; he has an altar wherever crows gather in aptly-named murders. </p><p>Vinyl is the beloved of musicians; every music note ever written is written for them and their stars. </p><p>Nix, the gentle, the kind, the dark; lovers worship them with beating hearts and whispers spoken under soft lamplight. </p><p>Sammy, Soup, the dawn and the dusk; every time the sun continues to rise and fall they are praised. </p><p>Owl, the poet; every story ever spoken, every tale told to amaze and astonish is theirs to write and rewrite. </p><p>Ori the cat lover, the archivist, friend to librarians everywhere. Fuckin nerd. </p><p>Kiki, as the protector of all growing things, is always so busy, but still xe have devotees to tend to their precious crops.</p><p>Sky who rules the roads and pathways; you can barely walk a metre without stepping on one of their shrines.</p><p>And Trashy has a monument in every atom of everything that exists; they were the Chaos and some part of them always will be.</p><p>And who is left, out of that glorious pantheon? The god of assassins and liars and thieves. The god of deceit. Dolos. Me. I am Dolos the Unwound, and this is my story. </p><p>I was shaped by my own words, and I expected to weave stories. When the twelve of us were born (because Chaos is not one of us, even though it is my child) I was the sixth. The middle child, always forgotten-</p><p>You chose to be forgotten. You stood in the shadows and smiled when they tripped over the branches you set down.</p><p>-in favour of my siblings. Rosemary assigned herself the role of mother, and gave me the bed nearest the window. </p><p>I was happy, at first, when the white lies I told effortlessly dripped off my tongue like honey. “I ate the cookies, not Mars! Here, see the crumbs on my shirt”. I was proud, to be able to protect, to help my siblings-</p><p>But you wanted more, you wanted to dangle them on the end of strings like a puppet, become what you had condemned all so long ago. The title of Eagle fits you no longer; you are the chains and your Prometheus is dying.</p><p> </p><p>-but the lies got larger. The honey became poison and the cookie crumbs became spots of blood. I would whisper in their ears as they slept, promise them diamonds and emeralds and golden statues if only they would do this, smite that, send a rainstorm to flood the town of a man who called me a stone hearted bitch. The Chaos, not quite my child yet but on it’s way, was too concerned with glancing at Trashy and blushing to notice my downfall. </p><p>So I told the humans that the gods didn’t love them. </p><p>I took stones from the riverbeds that I used to play in by myself, I took mortar from the library that they built without me, and I built a shrine deep in the woods, where only a few lone woodsmen came, with their sharp sharp axes. I watched from the shadows-</p><p>The ones that you cast</p><p>-as they read the sign that I had stuck into the ground. </p><p>“The gods are our caretakers and our providers, and we love them so much it burns, but they are not our friends. Renounce them, hold them at a distance. The new day is here, and it comes by itself.”</p><p>That night I followed the humans home and tended to the seeds of doubt in their minds.</p><p>The winter storms made their chimney fall down and I I said to them ‘how cruel that East must be, to send the howling wind’ </p><p>Their son returned from war with two eyes less and I whispered to them ‘how cruel that Mars must be, to take your son’s sight’</p><p>Their mother died of a sickness, quietly in the night, and I whispered to them ‘how cruel that Nix must be, to steal her last sunrise’</p><p>Their crops died and their cows wasted away and I whispered ‘how cruel that Kiki must be, to strike you with this blight.’</p><p>In such a manner, I whispered our way out of their minds.</p><p>I didn’t know what would fill the void we left.</p><p>The sermons began in silence. Glances between friends, hands brushing together, slips of paper left under pillows. I watched it and worried a little, but the lie is told, the threads of the story were woven, and the only thing I could do was make it go faster. Which I did. I knocked down the temples, I gave them stones, I gave my assassins feather-soft feet and knives that gleamed with a silken edge, sharp enough to cut a prayer from the lips of the holiest man. The priests and sailors and farmers began to neglect their altars (but not mine, because my altars are in your mind and they look like this: nobody will know, nobody will know). </p><p>East was the first to notice and by then it was too late.</p><p>“Hey, Dolos?” she says, strolling up to me, “Do you have any idea why the altars are empty?”</p><p>“Nope,” I said, and that was the end of that. She walked away muttering and I smiled in the soft rain she left behind.</p><p>The last to notice was Sammy. Poor Sammy, always part of a set. She had just carried Nix into the sky for the night, and as she confronted me, she was yawning.</p><p>“I noticed my shrine was empty, Dolos. Did you take my offerings again?” </p><p>“Nope,” I replied again. She walked away, and I laughed into the velveteen sky where my sibling stood guard.</p><p>It is called the false god and it will eat you alive. It whispers of knowledge and of power. </p><p>“Worship me,” it says. “Bow to me,” </p><p>“Feed me your thoughts and memories and your prayers, and I will give you knowledge of that most precious thing, the self. Become a fly in my web and I will let you live forever. Death cannot touch you whilst I am here.”</p><p>They laughed at it, then, my stupid, wonderful siblings. I watched the thing I helped create ravage the gardens and burn the temples and raze the shrines to the ground. Wherever it went it brought-</p><p>Not pain. Not suffering. It brought an absence of something, like the hole left by a recently lost tooth. You followed in its wake, like a searching tongue, and watched how the humans united, backs bent, underneath its shadow. It was the mountain, and you are the eagle again, and you have ripped out the liver of your Prometheus.</p><p>-peace. I watched in wariness, then fear, then horror, as it stole the love and joy and kindness and music and stories from the humans and replaced it with...apathy. A sort of warm, contented feeling. No more war (Mars shakes his head and hangs up his sword). No more storms (East sighs, and goes to find Chaos). No more melodies screamed into the night sky, only the same simple tune over and over again (Vinyl stops speaking to anyone but the stars).</p><p>It is the false god, it is my creation and it stole everything from me.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. i blinked and you were gone again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>lost and found and lost again. the universe has a cruel sense of humour.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>not a great chapter. i tried.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The curious thing about children is how they grow up. So fast, and yet looking back I remember every single day I spent with the Chaos. </p><p>I taught it to play poker on the first anniversary of it’s creation. I took it by the shoulder, away from where it sat with East, and the face I pulled at her when she held onto it’s hand even as I led it away wasn’t meant to be jesting. </p><p>I brought it into the library of my tower, and in between bookshelves and furnaces I laid out the cards. Its brow furrowed as I explained the rules, and in its eyes I saw my own reflected back at me, like two smouldering coals, about to go out. I smiled wider, and won the next three games.</p><p>They won the next ten. The pile of old brass coins (something swiped casually from Sky’s altar) grew and grew by its elbows, and my poker face never wavered, not once. That night, as I saluted a goodnight to Nix from my roof, I held the pack of cards in my hand and wondered when I started caring about the results of poker.</p><p>On the third anniversary of their creation I took them on a picnic, on the suggestion of Rosemary. She gave us a handwoven blanket to sit on, and as I laid it out on the grass plateau above Owl’s house, I wondered how it was so easy for her to create something that stays, something warm and soft. Lies melt away in the vigilant sun and shadows hide from that all-consuming light.</p><p>The Chaos offered me a pack of cards, but when I waved it away a flash of concern crossed their face. </p><p>“No use playing’ when I know you’ll win, kiddo,” I joked, ruffling its hair. It grinned at me and the warmth I felt in my chest almost drowned out the scathing voice-</p><p>You don’t need a family, Eagle. You aren’t good enough. They don’t need you. There is no place in this bright forest for deceit. Leave the mountain, Eagle. Prometheus would be grateful.</p><p>-in my head. I poured tea, and we watched Mars swim across the lake, armour glinting like the scales of a fish in the shallow water.</p><p>The warmth of the sun only lasts so long, and that night I found myself on the roof again, he cards in my hand, again, and this time I wondered when it became so easy to lie to my family. </p><p>On the tenth anniversary of it’s creation, I watched bitterly as East took it’s hand and pulled it away. I stalked them through the forest, to where trees parted and came back together, forming a clearing, where only a few days ago I had piled up rocks and mortar in the shape of a god. The statue was still there, granite arms reaching out as if to say ‘help me, help me,’. </p><p>“What is this?” asked Chaos. I held my breath as walked cautiously over to it, hand still joined, like a lifeline-</p><p>See? They don’t need you. They have each other.</p><p>-and then East touched the statue gently on the face. </p><p>I didn’t know what I expected.</p><p>A clap of thunder? An earthquake? Heavy silence and dark shifting leaves? </p><p>Not this. Not the Earth opening up, a sick shadow of Hades and his Persephone, to swallow my child and leave nothing but a jagged rent in my heart.</p><p>East screamed. The rage that erupted from her throat was visceral, a living, breathing being of its own. It grew wings and a lashing tail and shot into the sky, propelled by the sudden absence of it’s heart. The noise  went on for what felt like hours. When it was over, silence rolled over us like a thick, velvet rug. The echoes of her scream rang through the world, sending shockwaves through the clouds. All at once, the heavens opened, rain biting down with such force it would have stripped the skin from my bones, if I had them. </p><p>Despair was written in every crevice of her being as she dropped to her knees. Hair hung in a curtain, obscuring the tears that I was sure were slipping down her face. Her shoulders shook.</p><p>I didn’t see what she did next, my feet already carrying me away, to tell the others that Chaos was...no. Not possible. </p><p>It was possible. Because this is not Greek mythology. I am Demeter, and my Persephone is swallowed, pomegranate seeds and all. No spring, no summer, no winter. Just the fall.</p><p>The wrath of the gods is a wonderful sight to see. Clouds part, nuclear light falls on the corneas, scarring your death into your eyes. It is the last thing you see. We rode out, terrible and broken and the very ground underneath our feet held its breath.</p><p>Brothers and sisters and husbands and wives broke apart. Dogs howled as mothers and fathers sat listless, food rotting in the pan, fire dwindling to a mere glow. Family is no more; but the absence of family is melancholy, not Chaos.</p><p>Storms flooded fields, drought cracked clay riverbeds, winds stronger than anything the humans had ever seen. The hail storms blew down the temples of this false god. Rainbows are no more; but the absence of a rainbow is rain, not Chaos.</p><p>War broke out in every continent in the world. Old grudges, forgotten feuds, mild disputes, all blown up like a swelling boil, and the pus of war spilled out. Water and blood mix in the gutters as a young boy with a knife in his stomach dies slowly in the rain. Peace is no more; but the absence of peace is bloody death, not Chaos.</p><p>There is screaming in the streets. Harps and guitars and pianos are being chopped up for firewood, and just outside the ring of tentative light, the dogs and cats lie in wait. Further out, worse things have been stirred into a frenzy. Music is no more; but the absence of music is silence, not Chaos.</p><p>The moon hides her face, the stars are obscured. Humans are reduced to worms as they fumble their way through the darkness. Torches go out, lovers are held apart, the man goes to war and the woman is taken for a slave. The moon is no more; but the absence of the moon is darkness, not Chaos.</p><p>Thievery runs rampant. With flashing blades and dark cloaks, assassins roam free and a life is easily bought with a piece of bread. Regret fuels rage, and I hope, deep in the heart I swear I don’t have, that the shimmering web of lies I weave will bring back my child. Truth is no more; but the absence of truth is despair, not Chaos. </p><p>The sun no longer rises. Each day, a golden eye peeks over the bedcovers, but no, today is a sick day, the whole Earth is sick with fear and hunger and anger and wrath, and so the chariots of dawn and dusk lie gathering dust. The sun is no more; but the absence of the sun is cold, not Chaos.</p><p>Books burn, pages curling like autumn leaves, poets tongues trip over themselves and the few peace talks that are hopelessly made fall apart in seconds. Tongues are stuck on poles, and the hush that falls over the world gives it the air of a funeral (which of course it is). Language is no more; but the absence of language is gibberish, not Chaos.</p><p>The history books are locked away. We take a break from our ravaging, we sit in the library and let ourselves fall apart in safety. Liquor was produced, tears were shed, and at the end of it all we wrote the Chaos a book, we called it the Memory book and it-</p><p>Destroy it destroy it, you must not remember, you must forget and kill and burn and destroy</p><p>-it glowed in the firelight. </p><p>Lastly, when the temples were burnt and the crops were razed and the Earth was well and truly destroyed, the two youngest of us stepped onto that barren Earth, and noticed the few humans left cower before their feet. </p><p>“Come,” said Sky, smiling gently “Let me show you how to live again,”</p><p>As Kiki rolled up xeir sleeves and began planting crops from our garden, Sky took the humans around the world and gathered the last remnants of society. They huddled together, a hundred cattle believing they were being sent to the slaughterhouse.</p><p>They settle down, start farms, have fights. We are too tired to do much more than watch, and for the first time we see what the human’s life would be like with no gods, no masters, just the universe (who has herded them through fire and flame and between drops of rain and knives and through the dark, this human arc, Nova’s Ark). A month goes by, the group is thriving. We come to a year’s anniversary of the Chaos’ death, and we gather in the library again. When Ori takes out the memory book, it is much fatter than we last left it.</p><p>“I think it’s residual Chaos magic,” she explains. “Everything that we did after it’s death is in this book. Even,” here she glances at me “the bad things.” </p><p>I raise where my eyebrows would be.</p><p>“We all did terrible things, sis,” I say, hoping nobody can hear the tremble in my voice.</p><p>Should I tell someone?</p><p>I-</p><p>Shouldn’t tell anyone. They would kill me, slowly. I would be gone. I can’t tell anyone, ever.</p><p>-Shouldn’t tell anyone. I don’t want to upset them. Yes. That’s why.</p><p>I sit on the roof that night, and wave to Nix from her place in the sky. It’s a comfort to see her again, and the stars surrounding her are singing again. They twinkle in a particular way whenever they sing, and I know Vinyl sees it too. </p><p>The colony has just hit three hundred survivors. The first baby born in this new world, and they have named it Trashy. I saw it, after it was born, wrapped in a green blanket, squalling in the arms of its mother. It’s wrinkled red face and waving fists and it’s powerful lungs are all terrifyingly alive. Each breath it takes if a defiance of us, a message saying ‘I am here, despite everything you have done’ </p><p>I am here, despite you.</p><p>The camp was silent when I visited. Sentry posts stood empty, torches streamed in the wind I left behind me. Dust rolled back beneath my feet and the silence was almost as heavy as that day in the glade. I pulled back the flap of the new mother’s tent, and the warm darkness inside felt like a home.</p><p>I bent over the cot, and scooped the child out. It didn’t cry, or scream, instead blinking up at me with eyes that had the colour washed from them by the faint moonlight sidling in through the tent flap.</p><p>“Hey kiddo,” I whispered, and as the kid babbled softly in return, I noticed it’s teeth were sharp, like mine.</p><p>Fear stole the air from my metaphorical lungs. Sharp teeth. Screaming. Safety. The puzzle pieces were slotting into place with deafening thunks and the picture they formed was not pretty. The universe had a sense of humour, then. </p><p>As if to confirm my suspicion, the baby laughed at me and spoke a soft syllable that hooked onto my buried guilt like a fishing hook, and pulled it to the surface, scales glimmering with shame.</p><p>“Da!” the baby said. “Da!”</p><p>Later in my tower, I held the pages I had ripped from the Memory Book and as I mourned the lost knowledge the pages had contained, a teardrop splashed onto the page, almost obscuring the word ‘erased’. </p><p>I held a lighter to the edge of the pages and felt the last memories of my reborn child fade away.</p><p>I slept uneasily that night, unsafe in some deep dark pit of forbidden knowledge, and no matter how much I searched in my dreams, the only thing I could recall was a deep sense of loss, like some part of me that I had just refound had been ripped away again by my own cruel hand.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the weather is nice today. would you like to go for a walk? https://discord.gg/syeKx9aK</p></blockquote></div></div>
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